New Japan Soul night 1 (June 16) Full card, preview

Loaded night in Hokkai Kita Yell

June 16 sees the second of two nights for much of NJPW in Sapporo, as after All Together on June 15, the next night will see the start fop the New Japan Soul tour.

The tour to come will see a lot of high stakes matchups as G1 Climax 34 qualifiers will be taking place, but before that, a stacked lineup will see a lot of fallout from Dominion and a historic main event.

Watch New Japan Soul LIVE in English on NJPW World!

Main event: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship Steel Cage Match- SHO vs El Desperado

Singles record: 3–3

The main event sees Best of the Super Jr. winner El Desperado get his shot at the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion SHO- under unique circumstances in the first singles match contested inside a steel cage in 20 years in NJPW, and the first time ever the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship has been on the line in the environment.

Desperado lost the junior heavyweight gold in the same venue of Hokkai Kita Yell back during the New Beginning tour. It was a match that saw a parade of interference culminating in Ren Narita appearing from underneath the ring and choking out the then champion to allow SHO to win via countout. From there, SHO has put together a reign marked either with luck, as his match against YOH at Sakura Genesis ended barely after it began due to injury, or more interference, against DOUKI at Satsuma no Kuni.

SHO couldn't resist attempting to rain on Despe’s parade after the masked man won his first ever Best of the Super Jr. trophy in the main event of Dominion. As SHO attempted to vigorously stroke his own ego, Desperado suggested that if he truly can win all by himself with no outside interference, he should have no issue taking a steel cage match. Certainly a whole new side of SHO will have to be shown in this one if he’s to survive with his junior title- or given Desperado’s sadistic reputation, if he’s to survive at all.

8th Match: IWGP Global Championship- SANADA vs David Finlay

Singles record: 1–0 SANADA

Already announced for New Japan Soul, per David Finlay’s request, his first defence of his second reign as IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion will be against SANADA. Back in the 2023 New Japan Cup, SANADA’s first time with the spring trophy, and his route to the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, ran through Finlay in the finals, and the Rebel would since be determined to gain revenge.

That revenge could have come in the New Japan Cup one year later as the brackets worked out, but Finlay’s sudden withdrawal due to health concerns put paid to the bout taking place. In the end Finlay returned and seized ‘his’ Global gold from Nic Nemeth at Dontaku, before demanding to face SANADA, recovering from his own health issues, for that title. SANADA, musing that a former world champion winning the Global title would add considerable prestige to the new belt, readily accepted, but who will leave with the white and gold belt?

7th Match: NEVER Openweight Championship- HENARE vs Shingo Takagi

Singles record: 2–2–1

The NEVER Openweight Championship will be on the line when Shingo Takagi defends against HENARE in a rematch from Dominion. HENARE promised that the ‘mana’ of champion and challenger would collide over the NEVER title in Osaka, and that it indeed did, but neither man seemed to be stronger than the other, and a hard hitting war ended in a double knockout. Coming to before Takagi, HENARE was furious and frustrated, asking for one more shot to settle this score. Will that score be settled int he Maori Berserker’s favour?

6th Match: IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships- TMDK (Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita) vs BULLET CLUB War Dogs (Drilla Moloney & Clark Connors)

Tag record: 1–0 TMDK

Also already announced after tangles during the Best of the Super Jr. series, Kosei Fujita and Robbie Eagles challenge for the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championships in Sapporo. A pair of singles wins for Fujita and Eagles over the champions can be added to a three minute, 33 second win for the duo over the War Dogs during Super Jr. Tag League, as the Ichiban Sweet Boys seem to consistently have the War Dogs number. Will they have their titles as well after Sunday?

5th Match: NEVER Openweight 6 man Tag Team Championships: Boltin Oleg, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Toru Yano vs Los Ingobernables De Japon (Yota Tsuji, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi)

Six man record: 1–0 LIJ

Another rematch from Dominion sees Los Ingobernables De Japon put their freshly won NEVER 6 Man titles on the line against the former champions, Boltin Yano and Tanahashi. Two headlines came out of the NEVER 6 man bout at Dominion June 9. The first was Tsuji getting an emphatic win to secure his first NJPW championship after delivering a Gene Blast to his one time mentor Tanahashi. The other was an incredible physical performance from Boltin, who was the standout on the outgoing champion side, and was not satisfied with the end result. As Boltin requested one more go at the trios belts, the challenge has been accepted for the first of our five title matches on the night.

4th Match: Los Ingobernables De Japon (Titan & Tetsuya Naito) vs Just Five Guys (TAKA Michinoku & Yuya Uemura)

LIJ face Just Five Guys in tag team action in Hokkaido. One night after his main event meeting with Jake Lee at All Together, Naito will want to reset his sights on Forbidden Door, and his IWGP World Heavyweight Championship challenge to Jon Moxley. Meanwhile Uemura, freshly relieved of his KOPW 2024 title thanks to Great-O-Khan, wants to set a new course to gold and glory through G1 Climax 34.

3rd Match: BISHAMON (YOSHI-HASHI & Hirooki Goto) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo & EVIL)

2nd Match: Just Five Guys (DOUKI & Taichi) vs HOUSE OF TORTURE (Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Ren Narita)

Tag action sees DOUKI and Taichi team up against Kanemaru and Narita of HOUSE OF TORTURE. Taichi and Kanemaru’s long friendship was torn asunder last autumn when Kanemaru joined H.O.T, while DOUKI has not forgotten about how Narita cost him the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship back in April, leading to a lot of bad blood in this one.

1st Match: Katsuya Murashima, Shoma Kato, Tomoaki Honma, Tomohiro Ishii & Satoshi Kojima vs United Empire (Callum Newman, Francesco Akira, Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb & TJP)

Ten man action gets the main card underway as a Hontai force, including the returning MLW Champion Satoshi Kojima face off against a full strength United Empire force, including a recovered Francesco Akira making his return. As Akira seeks to hit the ground running, and O-Khan and Cobb want to assert their will as champions, Callum Newman wants to assert himself as someone who could enter the qualifiers to be in the G1.

Kickoff: Young Lion Debut Match- Masatora Yasuda vs Daiki Nagai

A ten minute kickoff match will see the debuts of new Young Lions Masatora Yasuda and Daiki Nagai.

Born in Mexico and raised from the age of three in Sapporo, 175 cm, 83 kg Yasuda is actually a second generation wrestler, the son of luchador Zumbido. Initially accepted into the Dojo in 2020, the 24 year old sustained an injury and withdrew from the Dojo before refocusing in 2022, and now making his home prefecture debut.

21 year old Nagai, at 170 cm and 84 kg, debuts after joining the Dojo in April 2023. Nagai graduated high school in his home of Kawasaki before joining the Japan Self Defence Forces, his military trainign preparing himn for the rigours of the wrestling ring. How will these two fare at the beginning of their pro-wrestling journeys?